There are many questions about Kashmir shawls and their
design iconography. Several of the most important being:

Where did the practice of shawl weaving
originate?
What did the earliest shawls look like?
How did the famous Paisley pattern develop?

While no concrete proof exists to conclusively answer
any of these queries the following commentaries will present some ideas
and evidence to address them.

The Raw Material
The origin of the special weaving technique employed for Kashmir shawls,
known in Kashmir as kani and 2x2 tapestry-twill in the West, cannot be
understood without explaining the somewhat mysterious history of the raw
materials.

Researching the first question - where did shawl weaving
originate - invariably
leads to the most northwesterly mountainous part of India that is now
called Kashmir. The extremely fine, high quality wool used in the production
of the best qualities shawls was gathered from wild as well as domesticated
goats and sheep and Kashmir had a virtual monopoly on this trade. There
has always been substantial controversy surrounding the presence of wild
versus domesticated wool in a shawl and still today it is far easier to
determine which type of animal fiber was used rather than the question
of its breeding. But there is no question the under-hair, or down, from
wild Tibetan goats was used to weave the most rare and valuable shawls.

CAPRA hircus is the scientific name for the type of goat
able to produce such an extremely soft, fine and warm coat of under hair.
This wool
grows as a secondary layer beneath the animal's ordinary coarse outer
coat of hair (fig.2). Herds of these wild Tibetan goats (fig.3) would
spend the warm spring and summer months in the high, dry elevated cold
plateaus of the Himalayan Mountain Ranges bordering Kashmir. At the onset
of winter the goats would leave these areas and migrate
down into the lower, less elevated valleys and riverbanks where temperatures
were not nearly as extreme and far more moderate. On their return in the
spring the ensuing change in locale and climate caused the coat of hair
produced in the winter to molt. To help remove this now unwanted layer
of protection the goats would rub themselves on rocks and trees to remove
as much of the winter wool as possible.